Thursday, October 20, 2005

Kirby's riff off Frankenstein continues. First there's a flashback to Etrigan's old encounter with the original Baron Von Rakenstein and his creatures years in the past. Great double page spread of the assorted beasties. Back in the modern day, we see that the Demon didn't quite manage to wipe out the Rakenstein evil, as the modern Baron has inherited his ancestor's instruments and has Jason Blood prisoner and plans to put his head on the creature's body.

Fortunately Blood transforms before the cut can be made, and frees the creature, who also has a telepathic link to a psychic girl who Harry and Randu went for help in finding Jason.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Quite a few books. Two hardcover MASTERWORKS from Marvel, one the first reprinting the pre-hero fantasy books with the first ten TALES TO ASTONISH. Kirby did eight stories in that run (one never reprinted), totaling 45 pages, plus nine of the ten covers. The third volume for the Hulk picks up on the other end of the TtA run, with Kirby layouts on the first five issues included, plus a few of the covers. And MACHINE MAN #1 is reprinted among a few other stories in another MILESTONES special.

Over at DC, the previously mentioned SHOWCASE PRESENTS: GREEN ARROW reprints all of Kirby's 1950s GA stories (11 stories, 67 pages) in black and white, and continues into the rest of the silver age solo stories and major crossovers.

MARVEL MASTERWORKS: ATLAS ERA TALES TO ASTONISH VOL. 1By STAN LEE, JACK KIRBY, STEVE DITKO, JOHN BUSCEMA, AL WILLIAMSON, DON HECK, JOE SINNOTT & FRIENDSCover by JACK KIRBYMarvel Masterworks have brought you classic stories from Marvel's Silver Age super-hero heyday and the start of it all with its Golden Age. Now thrill to the first offering of Marvel's Atlas Era! Before the dawn of the Marvel Age, the comics world sat astride the shoulders of Atlas Comics - a world full of gun-fighting outlaws, romantic heartbreak, death-defying heroism in battle, terrifying depths of horror, and visionary science fiction. In TALES TO ASTONISH return to the days when atomic monsters roamed the Earth and alien invasions were a daily occurrence. Marvel's classic creators will make you quake at the sight of the 9th Wonder of the World! You'll tremble before the Things on Easter Island! Beware the might of Mummex-King of the Mummies! Flee before the Giant from Outer Space! Dare defy the Floating Head! Prepare to be Astonished! Collects TALES TO ASTONISH #1-10 (1959-1960).272 PGS. / $49.99ISBN: 0-7851-1889-6

MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THE INCREDIBLE HULK VOL. 3Written by STAN LEE & GARY FRIEDRICHPenciled by JACK KIRBY, BILL EVERETT, JOHN BUSCEMA, GIL KANE & MARIE SEVERINCover by MARIE SEVERINBrace yourself, True Believer, Hulk is smashing his way into another marvelous monster-sized Masterworks! The batty bullpen declareth that you'd better hide behind a Hulk-Buster because it's not a happy Hulk who faces off against the likes of bombastic Boomerang, the android Hulk-Killer and the one and only Abomination in his classic first appearance by Stan "The Man" and Gil Kane! That's only the warm up, though! The cosmos itself shudders when the strongest man-like being in the Marvel U. goes toe-to-toe with the Silver Surfer, Prince Namor and the Mighty Thor himself!Grab a crash helmet, bunker down and prepare yourself to be Hulk-inued this January!Collecting TALES TO ASTONISH #80-101 and INCREDIBLE HULK (Vol. 2) #102288 PGS. / $49.99ISBN: 0-7851-2032-7

MARVEL MILESTONES SPECIAL: BLOODSTONE, X-51 & CAPTAIN MARVEL IIWritten by JOHN WARNER, DAN ABNETT, ANDY LANNING, JACK KIRBY & ROGER STERNPenciled by MIKE VOSBURG, PAT BOYETTE, MICHAEL LOPEZ, JACK KIRBY & JOHN ROMITA JR.Cover by GIL KANEHe has lived for untold centuries, but today is the day he may die! It's the fear-fraught first appearance of Ulysses Bloodstone from MARVEL PRESENTS #1 (October 1975). And proving that Bloodstone runs thicker than water, his daughter, Elsa, inherits the family business in BLOODSTONE #1 (December 2001). Plus: They made him in their own image, then condemned him to death for being too human! Machine Man, the Living Robot-hunted, hounded-fights to survive in a hostile world in MACHINE MAN #1 (April 1978). And finally, who's that lady? Presenting the exciting origin of the all-new, all-different, all-terrific Captain Marvel from AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #16 (1982).104 PGS. $4.99

Monday, October 17, 2005

Wow, this is a busy cover. Lots of captions, balloons and figures. Very well rendered, though. That kind of greyscale knockout colouring often used on secondary characters in covers of the era shows off the linework pretty well.

Inked by Dick Ayers (the original Kirby Checklist listed it as Ditko, and I was about to say that sounded wrong, but checked the update in TJKC #32 and saw it was already corrected there, and on the online listing).

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Searching for Sif in New York, Thor comes across the time funnel surrounding the Atomic Research Center where she vanished. He's drawn into it as well, where he finds himself battling trollish mutates in a cataclysmic future.

After freeing Sif, he finds out that all a part of a scheme of old nemesis Pluto, while inside the Center a mysterious being in a cocoon awakes. And setting up future stories in Asgard, Odin is still curious about the origin of Galactus.

Fun stuff, I thought the splash pages in this one were especially well done, including the one of the ruined future landscape.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Mark Evanier is talking about old comic company fan clubs, in this post about the Merry Marvel Marching Society records of the 1960s, including a short bit of an interview with Kirby about the record which featured the Marvel Bullpen of 1964 and a link to mp3 format files of the two MMMS records.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Machine Man continues his battle with Ten-For, who runs out to be craftier than expected, fooling the army into thinking he's peaceful and Machine Man is violent while waiting for his invasion fleet to arrive. MM gives up on humanity thanks to this ploy, and then ends up as a costume party. Very strange stuff.

Meanwhile, the Autocron fleet gets the message from Ten-For and prepares for their invasion.

Bit of an odd-layout on pages 2-3. They're meant to be read as a two page spread, but without any of the usual visual cues except a really small unclear arrow, so you almost invariably read the panels in the wrong order. I wonder if part of this was originally meant to be a two-page spread, but then shrunk down and reformatted. Doesn't seem likely, as the 17-page story length had been standard for quite a while at this point (shrinking page counts had led to such reformatting in some other 1970s work, like an issue of OMAC).

Mike Royer inks the 17-page story, Klaus Janson inks the cover and Kirby writes a text page, "Would You Like a Machine to Fight Your Battles?".

Monday, October 10, 2005

Kirby hits DC's version of the Marvel ESSENTIAL line with two books next year. The Green Arrow volume starts with his run from 1958 and continues on from there, the same stories included in the 2001 GREEN ARROW BY JACK KIRBY collection. The House of Mystery volume is a bit more trivial, but for the record it will have a reprint of the reprint of "The Negative Man" from HoM #84 in 1959.

Saturday, October 08, 2005

I was just playing around with dropping colours off a scan, and thought this would be a good example to show off that great trademark S&K inking of the early 1950s. Look at that definition on that hand, bursting in from off-panel.

The romance books were riding high at this point, with S&K doing stories in both YOUNG ROMANCE and spin-off YOUNG LOVE (which as an ad in this issue mentions, had just been upgraded to monthly, as YR had a year earlier). This one has a 14-page Simon&Kirby classic, "Hands Off Lucy".

Opening with the usual strong confessional title page, the story begins with a flashback to our hero Lucy as a child, where we see that Caesar was the neighbourhood bully, as well as Lucy's next-door neighbour. As they got older he tried to ask her out, but she wasn't interested, until he called one time after a date she planned suddenly cancelled. Of course Caesar is as violent as ever, though not with her, and winds up very possessive of her, especially when an old flame returns to town, and Caesar finally gets his comeuppance as all bullies in comics eventually do.

A very nice story, with really powerful artwork from Kirby. Lots of chances for action thanks to Caesar's bouts of violence, and great depictions of body language and backgrounds.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

More reprints repackaged by Joe Simon from the 1950s Prize series, two 6-pagers by Simon&Kirby, plus one by Mort Meskin.

"Strange Old Bird" from BLACK MAGIC v4#1[#25] (1953) is told by the old caretaker of an apartment building, about an old woman who lived in the building and took care of birds. She tells him the story of the immortal firebird the Phoenix, which turns up in the form of a sick bird she takes care of.

A nice short story, and I like the way Kirby drew the Phoenix (especially compared to the odd non-Kirby new cover where the bird looks like a man in a bird suit).

"Up There" from BLACK MAGIC v2#7[#13] (1952) is a story about a series of test pilots who die in a series of crashes. One of the pilots waiting for his turn sees his wife die of a lingering illness, and then goes up and crashes, with the recording equipment on his plane recording him imagining the ghost of his dead wife, which is then backed up by a photo found in the crash. Not quite sure I got the point of this story, and I've seen the basic theme done better, but the splash page is really nice.

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Two Kirby reprints in this issue, plus a short note about the monster books in the text pages from Kirby, his last work for Marvel according to the Kirby Checklist. In this piece he talks about working on the story and how they served as an evolutionary step to the Marvel super-heroes of the 1960s, like the rock monsters from "Thorr" showing up in the first Thor story, plus similar ideas in Hulk, X-Men and FF.

"Save Me From the Weed" is reprinted from STRANGE TALES #94 (1962) is this 6-page Kirby/Ayers story. Previously covered in this 1970s reprint. Still one of my favourites of the genre.

"I Fought the Colossus" is a 5-page Kirby/Ditko story from STRANGE TALES #72 (1959). A scientist builds a massive super-intelligent computer that can project the future and guide humanity to paradise. After a few years, the computer secretly builds a giant robot, which everyone assumes is a weapon with which it plans to conquer humanity.

The original designer is able to destroy the robot, only to find out after, in an ironic twist, that the robot was actually meant to serve man. But wait, it's a cookbook! Oh, sorry, that's another story...

Not one of the best, but the art is nice. Also, world balloon on the first page.

This issue also has an original Ditko cover, with many of the monsters that appeared in the MONSTER MASTERWORKS reprint volume of a few years earlier, plus two Ditko solo reprints.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

It's Mjolnir mania on this Kirby/Ayers cover, with no less than three enchanted hammers. This is a year after Thor was introduced in the title, a few months before Kirby took over drawing the feature full-time. Great buildings on this cover, and that foreground figure of Thor is really nice.

Monday, October 03, 2005

I've been getting a lot of nonsense spam in the comments, so I've turned off comments for a while. For now, if you want to specifically correct something (especially inking credits), feel free to e-mail me and I'll edit the original post. Thanks for your patience.

A pretty decent image from this Harvey romance comic, but I have to say that a lot of the Harvey covers are very low-key compared to the covers for the Prize comics (when they weren't using photo covers).